Trump calls for nationwide ‘stop-and-frisk’ policy

Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the controversial “stop-and-frisk” policing practice to be instituted nationwide as a means of combating violent crime in America’s inner cities.

In a pre-taped interview on Fox News scheduled to air Wednesday night, Trump was asked by an audience member what he would do to address “violence in the black community” and “black-on-black crime.” Trump responded by proposing that “stop-and-frisk” policing, in which an officer is empowered to stop an individual and frisk them for weapons or any other illegal contraband, be adopted nationwide.

“I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically,” Trump told the questioner. “You understand, you have to have, in my opinion, I see what’s going on here, I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk. In New York City it was so incredible, the way it worked. Now, we had a very good mayor, but New York City was incredible, the way that worked, so I think that could be one step you could do.”

The practice, carried out most famously in New York but also by other police departments, is frequently criticized as an avenue for officers commit acts of racial profiling. Others tout it as responsible for a dramatic drop in New York City’s crime rate, although former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said in 2015 that the practice is “not a significant factor in the crime rate of this city.”